


Through Sunlight and Darklight and Shadow

by Arcis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: A witch's guide to pissing off everybody, All the characters are idiots, Anyone else tempted to throw Cursed Child out a window?, Dive off the non-canon deep end, F/F, F/M, M/M, That's also fine, Yes I put the plot through a blender, it's fine, make it gay you cowards, no? just me?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24701224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcis/pseuds/Arcis
Summary: Buckle-up buttercup, we're diving off the non-canon deep end. What if The Cursed Child wasn't annoying as hell? What if Draco Malfoy had a daughter instead of a son? What if Libra Malfoy was the greatest witch of her age and the world wanted to burn her alive for it?What if she and Albus Potter joined forces and decided to repay the favor?If canon is the hill you want to die on, may I suggest looking elsewhere. If you happen to be tired of Rowling macerating the legacy of the original books, well then, read on. There will drama. There will be angst. There will be gays (gasp). There will be a love for magic, wild and unbridled. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go back to Hogwarts.





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, you made it past the summary? Bold, brave, welcome fellow traveler. Well without further ado, let's start at the very beginning and slip into a world painted with sunlight and darklight and shadow.

These were not nice rumors.

They spread early. They spread fast. They had wings, as rumors tend to.

When she was born, the rumors flew faster. _Because the girl has white hair and white skin and pale eyes. The girl isn’t quite human, not quite human at all._

_You know what they say._

_They? Who? You? You know._

_What they say._

_The girl isn’t quite human because neither was He Who Shall Not Be Named._

_It’s only a matter of time before her eyes glow red. Time is all it will take and the truth will let out._

That was the beginning.


	2. You Pass Through the Mountain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again? Bolder. Braver. Most welcome.

We will be honest, Libra thought that she was a normal child. Normal for wizards, at least. She laughed, she played, she loved her mother, she adored her father.

She didn’t know that the world was a cruel, nasty, shit hole of a place. Not yet. All it will take is time.

Libra didn’t know that she wasn’t normal at all. When she tripped, she didn’t fall. And when she fell, she didn’t cut her knees. And when she cut her knees, the scratches healed like time rewound. She didn’t know that this was magic. She didn’t understand that this was power. The earth had always flickered with light for her. When was the last time you thought about the weight of the air?

Libra was only five years old.

Libra was a Malfoy. She had quite an education coming her way. But the world flickered with light unseen, and that underpins everything. You understand what I’m telling you? The earth pulses with fire and before Libra remembers anything else, she knows this.


	3. See In This Shadow

_Had she been listening? ... Perhaps she'd never stopped after all those days in the church after her mother died, saying every prayer she knew, waiting for even a whisper in reply. She hadn't been looking for an apology. She wasn't asking for time to run backward. She just wanted an explanation that was better than "It's the will of God," which was grown-up speak for "because."_

_It had seemed to her, thinking about it in her chilly bedroom, that what had happened was very much like a miracle. After all, it had been a terrible storm, and if the doctor had managed to get there without his horse being struck by lightning, that would have been a miracle, wouldn't it? That's what people would have said. Well, in that big, dark, rainy, roaring night, the lightning had managed to hit quite a small horse among all those big thrashing trees. Didn't that look like a miracle, too?_

_\- Nation,_ Terry Pratchett

Seven was a very miraculous year for Libra Malfoy. 

Seven was the year of tragedies.

Libra lost her mother, and the earth went dark. Her father disappeared right before her eyes. He stood there, right before her eyes. But her father was gone.

And so the shadows lengthened. They always seemed to grow longer. Libra missed her mother, always. She asked anyone who was anyone when her mother would return, even though she understood that the truth was never. Libra’s mother hadn’t ever left her before, so the first time was the last time.

This is the way with miracles.


	4. Find Me Behind the Curtain

Year eight did not exist.


	5. Skylight

Year ten Libra got her first broom. Year ten Libra fell off her first broom. From fifteen feet in the air.

She hated brooms. She despised heights. She started running. It seemed less painful. And there was so much hurt crawling at the edges of things. 


	6. Darklight

Her father hugged her tight before she boarded the train to Hogwarts. It was a little awkward, her face pressed against the scratchy fabric of his jacket. She hugged him back very tightly, not wanting to let go.

People stared. People always stared when they went out. People pointed and commented. This was a fact of life. Libra had learned not to argue with facts of life. Still. She just wanted to hug her dad.

“Your mother would be so proud you.”

Easier to nod than answer. Libra breathed in deep, promising herself that she would never forget how her dad smelled. Tobacco. Wool. Right here, right now. Home.

“Love you, dad.”

Her father crouched down so his eyes met her eyes. “I love you always, Libra. Now, be good, be smart, stay away from whomping willows, and keep out of the forest.” Libra parroted the words, nearly a song between them.

She didn’t promise anything. This would end up being good. Strange lights dance in the forest and it is the nature of magic things to spin with them, lost in the corona.

Whispers followed Libra down the aisle of the train.

Whispers turned to hissing. The hissing sounded a lot like her name.

Hissing turned to silence. The silence was not kind. And behind the silence blinked stone eyes.

Libra sat alone. No one entered her compartment, but many people walked by it and they stared with stone eyes.

Libra breathed slowly and wished only for an earth flicking with light.

She wondered why, standing there on the platform, her father looked like he was dying.

Goodbye dad.

She waved.


	7. So Come For Me

Libra ran for the forest. She ran and she ran. In the darkness, the earth fell from her and rose up into her. She ran and ran.

She hated Hogwarts with every breath in her body, with every pulse, with every beat.

She hated the children who mocked her. The ones who pulled her hair, who destroyed her books, who stole her bag, who sent spells skittering towards her, ripping at her. She hated the teachers who saw nothing. They never saw anything.

She hated Halloween. She hated the spell that dyed her blue eyes red in the middle of the Great Hall. She hated with a force that one day warps a person unrecognizable.

So she ran. Because it was better than the laughing. Because it was easier than the screaming. Because it hurt less than dying a little.

Libra hit the trees and nothing stopped her. She breathed in magic and she knew of monsters but she lived among men. So come you horrors of the earth, come for me, I live among men.


End file.
